Why I’m running for second term – Niger governor

Governor Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger State has said his decision to seek a second term in office was driven by the desire to complete all the ongoing projects that had reached near completion stage.

Governor Bello, who said this after submitting his expression of interest and nomination forms at the APC national Secretariat in Abuja on Tuesday, said the good started by his administration must be completed in the interest of the people.

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“I am actually not happy today because I just left communities that have been submerged completely by water. We have close to 20 local government areas (LGAs) which have been submerged with water.

“Why I am seeking for a second time is simple. We have started some good works and most of them are near completion and we must do our best to complete those projects in the interest of our people.

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“These are projects that are of high impact to the citizens of Niger State, so we have at the moment invested alot in the platform to ensure condusive economy and social environment in the future.

“So 4 years is not enough; 8 years is a bit tough but even with 8 years, we hope that the predecessor in 2023 would maintain the temple to continue with the infrastructural development.

“So, yes I am going for second term to enable me complete some of the projects which are still ongoing,” he said when asked to explain the reason why he chose to run again.

Asked whether he was worried about the recent defections that rocked the APC, the governor said, “I am not really bothered about the defection. I have carefully analyzed those defecting and I have discovered most of them are defecting for personal reasons. They don’t have one unified reason for defection. They all have individual reasons why they are defecting. So, I am not really bothered about those defections.”

Sani said that his government had appointed a consultant to put all the necessary documents together to recover all the benefits his state deserved from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Speaking on the recent flood disaster in the state, the governor said, “Thousands of hectares of lands submerged with water, and more than 100 communities are experiencing this. So, this year unfortunately, the production would be less than last year which was close to 540,000 metric tones of rice.”

On the plan he had for the education sector, he said, “As regards to education, this is something we need to take seriously.

“We have put in place a framework to guarantee the educational system in Niger State, to improve on the quality. Unfortunately when we came in, most of the infrastructures were completely worn out; as you are aware, education requires a lot of capital, you also know the investment of education is not immediately but we have decided to move on.

“We have started picking up our schools, the whole school system approach system especially with the secondary schools; we have also started working on the primary schools through UBEC and at thesame time, we are given some spot to our tertiary institutions.

“We have started a teachers’ training center to reduce the teaching gap which is functional now and few years from now, would start yielding fruit when we start producing good quality teachers. So, those are the main problems we found in education, infrastructure and technical issues as regards to the classrooms, dormitory, materials and the technical side is the quality of teachers that we lack.”